cover image Modigliani, the Pure Bohemian

Modigliani, the Pure Bohemian

June Rose. St. Martin's Press, $22.95 (249pp) ISBN 978-0-312-06416-7

Rose ( Elizabeth Fry ) has produced a grand portrait of reknowned Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). At age 14 he fell seriously ill and, during periods of delirium, spoke of nothing but becoming an artist. His mother saw this desire as being her son's ``strongest attachment to life'' and later encouraged him to study art full time. Rose deftly describes Modigliani's odyssey through the art capitals of the world; the twists and turns of his career that took him from painting to sculpture and back to painting; and his relationships with artists like Picasso and Chagall. The book also reveals a complex triangle involving ``Modi,'' as his friends called him, his lover Beatrice Hastings and homosexual poet Max Jacob, in which the three fell in and out of love with one another over many years. Illustrated. (Nov.)